How to deal with epic meltdowns

[nicesunday]

My daughter recently turned 12 months and has started tantruming, but what happened this morning was like nothing I've seen before.

For context she had not long woken from a nap. She is a bit snotty but no temperature and is well in herself.

She lost her balance from hands and knees and faceplanted a box. I knew she wasn't going to react well to it but I wasn't concerned that she'd "hurt" herself. I immediately offered her a hug as I do when she hurts herself, and she took it but carried on whimpering. Then she started struggling so obviously I let her go, and she threw herself to the floor hysterically. I kept it really calm and tried to just say her name but she was thrashing about, and every time I tried to move her away from something she could hurt herself on it just made it worse. I picked her up and took her upstairs to a darkened bedroom, and she just carried on. It reached a point after about 20 minutes where she looked possessed and like she no longer recognised me, and the noises she was making were so out of character.

She is a huge boob monster and it's literally the only thing that settles her when she wakes up screaming in the night, so I offered her the boob and she took it. She was breathing (while sucking) at probably around 90 breaths a minute.

As you can tell I left the boob as the last resort but I genuinely can't see that it would have stopped any other way. Is this really the best way to deal with this in future, or at least while she's young/not able to express herself verbally?

If you are happy to continue comforting her with breastfeeding and it's working, there's your answer.

As she gets older, you will most likely find other strategies for calming her but the best thing you can do for her in that moment is to stay calm yourself (easier said than done!)

I am happy to, I know how reassuring it is for her and my priority is to try and re-regulate her and let her know I'm there (which doing so in any other way other than offering the boob seemed to just escalate her rather than calm). I just didn't know, being new to this, whether I was missing something to try first.

And yes, you're right! I could feel myself getting frustrated because I was trying to help and she was rejecting me, but I genuinely did keep calm because I knew it wasn't her fault I was feeling triggered.

What worked for us was to sit down next to get but not touching, and say very quietly and calmly that I knew she was upset and when she was ready to calm down she could come to me for a cuddle. Then go quiet and just let her have a moment. As she got a bit older we would count together. I'd see her getting overwrought and say, ok sit down with me and let's quietly and slowly count.

This sort of thing is my plan as she gets older but I think she went past that today. I didn't think a 12m old could get into such a state, thought that was reserved for when they're closer to 2.

At 12 months, I definitely treated my daughter as a 'baby' still. Anything like that and I offered the boob straight away. While feeding I then spoke to her, "you hurt your face, ouch! You must have gotten a fright! You were doing so well with your crawling. Mummy was watching you. You cuddle in and drink your milk then you can try again when your ready."
I don't think there's anything wrong with offering boob in this way at this age. It's not habit forming that's impossible to break but it helps create a lovely tantrum free life.

At 12 months she's still a baby so I don't see any harm in comforting her with a feed if that's what works.

DS2 is 14 months and has MAJOR meltdowns (something DS1 never did). He goes WILD, almost ferel. He screams, cries uncontrollably, makes a low moaning/growling sound, starts getting, scratching and throwing things... I've never experienced anything like it! He can do this simply over not being allowed a drink of my coffee.

He isn't breastfed so the only way I can calm him down (without giving in, which I very rarely do) is to take him out into the garden. The change of environment - temperature, smells, sounds, etc. Seem to snap him out of it.

Boob! It cured everything pretty much instantly and didn't do him any harm. There's no need to keep it as a last resort. Mine was bf info toddlerhood and beyond, and he learnt to calm himself down when he was ready.